Sea Glass and Shark Teeth
by transmigratory
Summary: Her father always used to tell her that her hair was the color of the sand, and her eyes the shade of the glass on the shore. She was as much a part of her small town as the sea, until the boy with the shark teeth appeared and shattered the place where she stood frozen in time. Soul/Maka. Beach-town AU. Resbang 2014 entry.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**Author's note: **There's a lot I could say about this story, but I won't. I will tell you, however, that the completion of it took me almost two years (though I almost felt like I needed longer somehow haha), so it feels like quite an accomplishment to finally be done. I know it's sort of a simple, low-key story, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. :) The cover art was done by the wonderful Eisschirmchen, who was an honor to work with! I also had the honor of working with the artist jumpupanddown. Their art will be posted today along with the posting of this story, so please check it out! It's all beautiful ;-;

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>There is a small town tucked in by sand at day and sea at night. She's known it all her life. She can tell where each star and constellation is from any part of the beach, in any season. Her father used to say she's that particular shade of blonde because she used to lay down on the sand so often as a kid that the color of it stuck permanently to her hair.<p>

Now she can't ever leave, she figures. There's sea glass in her eyes and an extra layer of salt on her skin. She's as much a part of this place as the shore is. As is the crackle of frying bacon, the sticking aroma of maple syrup, and Ox Ford sobbing in a mass heap on the ground by the dumpsters, after Kim shoved him out there during their most recent disagreement.

She leans heavy against the slumping door frame while he wails, runs a rough hand over her face until she's positive she's rubbed all the frustration right out of her head. "Please come back inside, Ox. We're very busy and we need you-"

"But _she _doesn't need me! She never even _wanted _me."

"Look, I know love is really complicated but I think you can still manage to work for one more day."

"Oh, _please, _Maka_! _What would _you_ know about love's complications?"

She steps closer to him in the shaded alley and tries to contain the emotional papercut from the comment from surfacing in her deadly expression. "Excuse me? That was totally unnecessary to say! Keep up this disrespectful behavior and I will not hesitate to fire you!"

He laughs and gets up from the cobblestone, unties his apron and shoves it in her direction, and they both watch it flutter to the ground at her feet. "Don't worry about it. Consider this my letter of resignation." He dusts off his pants and glares from beneath thick lenses. "I can't be in this terrible place another year. All you women are too cold; and you, especially. Best of luck. Maybe one day you _will _understand and when you do, you'll leave your tears by the trash, too."

She rolls her eyes at his typical, unnecessary melodrama as he walks away, back hunched and hands trapped in ravine-deep pockets.

Maka picks up the small ebony apron and crumples it until it's balled up like a used tissue. She didn't even get the last word. She didn't get to say that she's been a victim of love's complications as well – that most people, even the "cold" ones have been (and is probably the reason they are so chilled to the soul deep beneath the skin)- and that she prefers to put her tears into their ocean so they just meld with the swirling waves, her heart-fracture so small and meaningless compared to a vast sea. She likes it over an alley floor coated in grease-trap residue where they stand out, where they might accidentally make a permanent mark.

Liz puts her head on Maka's shoulder and they both watch him shuffle around the corner and out of sight, like he's disintegrated in the sheer force of an early-summer sun.

"Yeesh. It's like a kicked puppy. It kind of makes me sick," her friend murmurs.

Maka tosses the apron into the dumpster with a sigh. "Liz, what do we have around here for booze?"

She feels her friend smile. "We've got rum, which I believe if mixed right will taste great in some coffee or iced tea."

"Make me your favorite, and your strongest. Then please have Kim put up the help wanted sign. It's going to be a long day."

"I'll make it two drinks, then."

She's never been happier to have the healing power of her head waitress on her side.

* * *

><p>"Maka?" Liz pokes her head into the kitchen. "I found a potential cook."<p>

She pours pancake batter into a frying pan and winces as she watches some of it drizzle over the edge. Her head spins from the second drink and it's a challenge to focus on the meals she makes. It has been a while since she has had any alcohol - she realizes too late - and now she feels as if the entire restaurant is on a tilt. She wonders what would happen if it were to just collapse; if the weight on her chest would fall with it. She considers phoning for backup but isn't sure who could fill her shoes for the next two hours before closing. _If anyone would even want to._ She sighs, and ventures another sip with a grimace.

"Um, Maka?"

She shakes her head and peers up from her slanted focus. "Sorry. Just tell him to take an empty booth and I'll be out in a minute."

Liz nods, and places a peppermint in Maka's hand. "You might need this, by the way. And when you go to find him, he'll be easy to spot in the crowd."

She groans and accepts it with a resigned crunch. She manages to neatly stack the pancakes and hand them to Kim on her way out the swinging door.

Liz is right: she notices him instantly in the usual family-oriented crowd. His hair is alabaster, and her stomach churns a little as she is reminded of their atrocious winter from the color. And his eyes are a hue she is entirely unfamiliar with: red, like the stripes on the peppermint melting down in her mouth; young wine; a hummingbird's throat. They are jewel-edged traps in her swaying mind. He sits at a booth by the window, and slouches as he soaks in the room.

When he catches her gaze, she sucks in a sharp breath and tries not to stumble. She stands just a smidgeon taller and slides into the seat across from him. "Hello," she murmurs with a faint smile. She can't remember the last time she has had to conduct an interview, or even the last time she has been face to face with some startlingly handsome stranger, especially in her tiny town full of familiar faces. Maka's hands fidget under the table as her stomach acid swirls again and burns up the storm of butterflies.

He remains slouched but throws her a lopsided, serrated grin and she thinks of the shark tooth necklaces in the gift shop just a half a mile away. "So, you're the boss?"

She quirks a brow. "You sound kind of surprised?"

"You just seem young. And… short." Their eyes stay linked, but hers narrow.

"Excuse me? _This_ is how you're going to start an interview?" She half stands in the booth, and shuffles to the side slightly against her will. "Who do you think you are?"

He backs away, but stays smiling. "One of the best cooks you could hire. Oh, and Soul."

"If that's the case," she hisses as she grabs him by the collar of his shirt, "then come with me to the kitchen right now and prove it."

He shudders in her grasp, and nods. He swallows his smirk.

* * *

><p>She sits at the edge of the sink, legs dangling after she hands him the grease-coated spatula. Maka crosses her arms, and silently her ego grows the longer she keeps balance. She takes another sip of her drink and stares him down as he stands by the grill and assesses his surroundings, his available ingredients.<p>

Patty slides him an order with a sly grin and wink and he reads it before he reaches for the eggs in the fridge, and sets to work on the simple customer request. He works in complete silence, and with a skill that surpasses Ox, and maybe even herself (maybe – it _has _been an awful day, she figures). She's transfixed by the intensity that drowns his ruby eyes, his swift fingers. He has the meal ready and organized on the plate in under ten minutes, and it is like a small work of art the way none of the food touches but still somehow melds together. He hands it to Patty and turns to Maka, his smirk back in place.

Before she has a chance to compliment him, Kim slides him a large order and he sets right to work.

"We're open another hour," she says, "think you can keep it up?"

He nods, his simper more serious.

She nods and smiles in return. "Just let me know if you need help."

And then she slips to her office to finish her paperwork, after she dumps the remainder of her sour beverage down the drain.

"We're all cleaned up and closed out front," Liz shouts.

"Ok!" Maka yells back. "You can all leave."

She sighs as she starts to record some of the numbers for their day, and jumps as the mystery cook slips into a seat across from her desk. She had somehow forgotten; he had blended right in.

"What about me?" he asks.

"Oh," she murmurs. She extends a hand and he shakes it; she's shocked by how porcelain-smooth his hands are, considering how he had bragged about his chef skills. "Maka, by the way. Thank you for your help. As much as I hate to admit it, you were perfect out there."

He nods. "I told you."

She rolls her emerald eyes and huffs at his arrogance. "Yeah, and you also told me I was short."

He scratches the back of his neck. "Can I let you in on a secret?"

Maka places her pen down to indicate her full attention.

"Your waitress told me the best way to get your interest in me as an employee was to get you riled up. Basically, that you like challenges. And also, you hate when people call you short. So I put it all together, and it did work."

She groans and puts her head in her hands. "I'm going to kill Liz," she says, muffled by her fingers. "But," she continues and lifts her head up, "it's probably a good thing we met." She clasps her hands on her desk and leans forward with a polite smile. "How about we have an actual interview now?"

"Sure."

She thinks for a moment. "Where are you from?"

He shifts in his seat. "New York City."

Her eyes widen. "Then what are you doing all the way down here?"

"Just taking a… summer break. And a personal break."

"So this would be a summer job?"

"Pretty much."

Maka hesitates. "Ok. Where are you living for now? And your age?"

"I'll be living temporarily at Sandy Heights. And I'm twenty four."

"The apartment complex? That's where I live, actually," she says, ignores the sinking feeling as she realizes she is a year older. "Anyway, what is your previous cooking and job experience?"

He crosses his legs and puts his arms behind his head. "I learned to cook at home. I was a musician my whole life and that was it. Pianist." There's a dullness that sits in his eyes as he admits his profession, and it unsettles her.

She purses her lips; it explains the smoothness in his hands, like the keys he once played. "Then how did you learn to cook so well?"

"My parents are very busy people. As I grew up, I just had to cook for myself. And sometimes, my older brother. And he enjoyed it. And I enjoyed it. So I got good at it."

"I'll give you a shot. Can you start tomorrow morning at around five a.m.?"

"Yeah. Sounds cool."

She laughs. "All right. Any questions for me?"

The fan on the ceiling whirs and squeaks restlessly over their heads. She takes a quick glance around her dingy office and an internal sigh squeezes out. The ceiling appears like it could crumble at any second from the amount of golden-brown water stains that drench it. The fake wooden panel walls have not been replaced since the restaurant opened years ago and stick out in a few places, knobbed and splintered like ancient tree limbs. There are certificates on the wall in old frames that the restaurant won, and licenses to serve dairy, to serve meat. The chairs they both sit in are tattered, picked up at separate yard sales.

And there is an old picture on her desk of her mother and father standing outside the place the morning it first opened, her father holding her pregnant mother like she is something easily broken, and both overjoyed at their prospect of a successful future in a small town setting. It is a constant reminder to Maka that this place was never meant to be hers. This office - this entire restaurant - was meant to be for her parents. Not for her. That she took it because she had no choice and now her present, and her future, were permanently warped by an incident that made the picture appear fake, like a snapshot from a pipe dream. She never got to take a picture like that, she thinks. She never stood on the threshold of an achieved dream.

She never got to have her future. She got the one her parents deserved but never got to live.

"Actually," he says after a long silence, "I do have one question."

Maka waits.

"Have you been drunk all day?"

Red paints her from the neck up; she has been caught despite her best efforts to sheathe it. She's never been a skilled drunk. "Um, look… I don't normally drink. Ever. It is just that our cook abruptly quit on us this morning and Memorial Day weekend is next week so I was stressed, _really _stressed and Liz makes great drinks, actually but I'm just buzzed now I think-"

"Hey, it's fine." He chuckles. "I was just wondering if you were lookin' to sober up, because I could really use a tour of the town since I just settled in here yesterday."

"Um-"

"And I felt that we needed a fresh start. Since we'll be working together and all."

She smiles at his unexpected kind words; maybe he is not so bad. "Sounds like a deal. I hope from today on we'll be good partners."

"So," she says as she fumbles with the main door's lock, "do you need anything in particular out of this tour?" She sucks in a quiet, humid breath of ocean air, all mixed with a lingering winter chill. It settles uncomfortably in her stomach; she itches for solid warmth and not the in-between, the uncertain.

He shrugs. "Not really. But Liz also told me if I wanted a good tour, to go to you for it."

She glances at him from the corners of her eyes. "Did she give a reason for that?"

Soul laughs. "Actually, no."

She huffs, suspicious. "If you say so." She throws on her lightest jacket and leads the way down a side-street to their right filled with house after house, some so close it is almost as if it's just one grand mansion. They walk a while in silence, and she observes as his eyes wander every so often, from the dried-grass yards to the flapping shutters.

"It's quiet here," he says.

"In a few weeks it'll be the complete opposite. No one's really on summer vacation yet, so the only people here for the most part are those that live here year-round."

"Like you?"

She nods. "My whole life." Her voice falters.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and does not bother to press further on the subject. She is glad for the return of the quiet as they pass her mother's old house, where only her father strides now in slippered feet on the splintered floors that used to be as smooth as polished stone. The house is winter-wind-painted and aching and she has to close her eyes to avoid soaking in more images of the paint chips and crumbling porch foundations, of slanted window panes. She leads them away from the residential section and toward the beach.

She takes him down sandy stairs and onto the partly-cold sand. The beach is as vacant as the streets of summer houses, and the only sound is the tiny waves and the occasional fishing boat. She walks toward an empty wooden lifeguard seat. Maka throws her shoes off at the front of it and starts to climb.

He laughs as she settles right into the chair cross legged, like she has been built into it. "I guess you do this a lot?"

She smiles back. "Only when the beach is closed for the season, and at night."

He hesitates at the bottom. "Good view?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Not gonna see for yourself? I thought you wanted the good tour." She holds out a hand for him as he struggles to climb up to the top.

He takes her hand and marvels at her strength as she single-handedly pulls him up to the seat beside her. He drinks in a sweet and sea-salted breath so unlike the air of a big city.

It is her favorite chair: the center of the three large, wooden lifeguard seats that stretch across the shore. She reached up and touched a seagull as a child the first time she ever sat here with her mother, and she has been attached to it ever since. She cannot think of a better place to view the town and also its natural elements: the gray-blue ocean, the widest expanse of sky. Wind curls the tips of her pigtails, frizzes the hair on her scalp. She comes here to read, to think, to reminisce. To escape.

"Ok," she says as she turns to him, "let me give you a brief tour.

"Where we came from was the main residential area, filled with a lot of rental houses and apartments that go on for miles and miles. There are a couple of sections of town like that, and they are mainly on the outskirts. I didn't feel like I had to show you all of them."

"Sure."

"In front of us is the ocean." She glares as he rolls his eyes. "Past the ocean is another city. But that's fancy-pants town; it's where the ritziest people live. Yachts, mansions, and private marinas." She takes a deep breath, and looks to the left. "That parking lot is for the beach-goers in the summer. In the parking lot – in that gray building - is the harbormaster's office. I'll take you there after this. Across the street from the parking lot is the center of town. It's where our apartments are, obviously. It's where the gift shops are, the famous pizza place, the convenience store. In the park that we can see from our apartment balconies is a stage where all the musical festivals and Shakespeare festivals take place."

She shrugs. "I mean, this place isn't too big, and you really don't need to know much about it. You won't be able to get what you need here unless you're on vacation, and since you're not, you're going to have to know about the bigger city to survive."

He grins. "So is there a part two of this tour?"

"I can't drive you anywhere today, but sure." She stretches and leans back, closes her eyes. He mimics her.

The sun is warm on their exposed skin, but not charring yet. As if there's still a layer of winter on it, slowly melting away.

She's envious of the things that can melt their chill, of things that can take in light and make the best of it.

Maka is still barefoot as they step into the parking lot she pointed to earlier. She avoids pieces of broken beer bottles without looking down; she knows where the regulars sneak drinks by the dock, where they shatter the evidence before the bike police can catch them. The fragments glitter amber in the clouded light like sharpened, hardened drops of tree sap. Pebbles stick to her feet, and the crackled pavement rubs her heels a little raw.

"I think you and my friend might get along," she murmurs as they reach the harbormaster's main door.

"Why's that?"

She laughs. "Call it a hunch."

She knocks three times in rapid succession and her blue-haired friend opens the door with a frown. "Yes?"

His voice sounds rubbed-raw with gravel. Maka resists chiding him for falling asleep on the job again. She clears her throat instead. "There's someone I'd like you to meet." She steps to the side to reveal a curious Soul. "This is Soul, our new cook."

He cracks his neck. "What happened to baldy?"

"Kim kicked him to the curb and he didn't take it so well," she says with a feathered sigh. "Anyway, Black Star, this is Soul, and Soul, this is Black Star, our town's head harbormaster. Somehow."

Soul extends a hand but Black Star refuses it and instead says, "Your hair is white. And your name is weird."

His red eyes turn to slits. "Your name is _Black _Star and you have _blue _hair." He drops his hand from the harbormaster's reach.

Black Star erupts into a raucous bout of laughter. "I like this guy, Maka. Ford was a prude, anyway." He steps forward and hugs Soul with such a strong pat on his back he nearly falls over. "Welcome to the town. Oh, and Maka, you guys are both cordially invited to a beach bonfire tonight. We're getting in at least one this year before the tourists trash the shit out of the beach. Bring your own beer."

Her stomach twirls. "Um, I'm good for alcohol, but all right, thanks." She smiles. "We'll be there."

Soul rubs his lower back as they walk away. "Yikes," he groans as a crooked pain sets in.

"Told you he'd like you and you'd get along," she says with a light laugh.

"If this is what it means to get along with him, though, I'm gonna need a back brace by the end of the summer."

* * *

><p>The fire is small, but the crackle of it is strong as she steps closer. She stands by it and lets the heat sink into her skin in place of the earlier chill. She grins as she watches Black Star try to get a perfect roasted marshmallow for Tsubaki and fails over and over. The grin softens as she takes the branch gently from him and gets it right on the first try. They sit as close as possible on their weatherworn log, and she pushes back some jealousy. There are a lot of couples here tonight. Some small part of her yearns for a warmth that comes from another person, and not a sharp-crackle summer fire.<p>

Maka startles when she feels a tug on her sleeve, but eases up when she turns to Marie sitting alone on her own log. The older woman pats the spot next to her and she winces when a branch sticks into her thigh like the prick of a needle.

"Black Star found these logs for us," Marie says with a knowing smile.

Maka grins back and picks at the jutting twigs. "Figures."

Marie takes a swig of water and slouches the slightest bit. "So, Maka, how are you?"

She wiggles her toes in the ground and relishes the sensation of smooth-ridged shell halves and wind-cooled sand. "I'm all right. A little stressed since Ox quit on me this morning, but better since I found a new employee that's much better than he ever was."

Her golden eyes glance around until they land on the new cook who sits by himself, far from the fire. "He's quite a looker. Is he single?" She turns to Maka with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

She puffs out her cheeks and kicks a pebble into the flames. "I don't care if he is, Marie. You know I don't have the time or urge to date."

The older woman places her water bottle down and pats her small hand. "You know," she says with a bittersweet sigh, "your mother used to say that to me, and you know what happened?"

She shakes her head and stays quiet.

Marie's grip tightens. "She met your father, and she had you. I'm not saying you should force yourself to date if you don't want to – absolutely not - but if love finds you, you should give it a chance. But only if it's love, because otherwise it's just a waste of time. It's gotta be the right person, or you may as well just marry a toilet."

Maka turns to Tsubaki and Black Star while Marie drones on and on about heated seats, who are enjoying their s'mores in companionable silence; she eats his burnt marshmallow, and he eats her perfectly-browned one. Her gaze pivots to another couple off to the side, and she observes as the man absentmindedly rubs his spouse's knuckles. She wonders what it might be like to be so familiar with someone, to be so comfortable with those unspoken touches and gestures. She remembers how her father used to play with the ends of her mother's hair when they would have their family movie nights, how he only stopped when he fell asleep.

She gets up and stretches to shift the thoughts from her mind. "I'll take what you said to heart, Marie. I promise."

She winks, and tosses her a plaid blanket. "That's my girl. Now go sit with your new hot chef. He looks very lonely in that corner."

Maka rolls her eyes but finds herself at his side, though she misses sizzle of the fire as they shiver in the shadows. "Hey," she says with a shy simper as she plops down beside him. Without another word, she stretches the blanket across their laps but does not move any closer.

"Hey," he replies before he takes another sip of his beer.

"Why are you all alone over here? You could have joined us by the fire, you know?"

Soul twists his beer into a stable spot in the sand. "I've… never really been a big fan of crowds. Or a lot of noise. I guess I've always liked the quiet, if that makes sense."

She nods. "It does. Honestly, I prefer the quiet, too." She leans back and smiles. "I love my friends, but I do also like an occasional dose of isolation with a good book and an open window."

He laughs and shifts just the slightest bit closer to her. "You're a real bookworm, aren't you? I can tell. Nerd."

Maka shoves him. "There is nothing wrong with loving books. Jerk. Knowledge is power."

His smile stays. "You're right. I know. I'm just messing with you."

She snorts and looks away.

"You're pretty easy to piss off."

She can feel his smirk on the back of her neck. "So what? I like books and I have a short-temper. It's who I am."

"Hey," he says with a hand on her shoulder, and she looks back. She flushes against her will as their eyes meet and his are crimson and drenched in intensity. "It's cool. I think you're cool. I think we'll get along really well. Good partners as we already agreed we would be."

She crosses her arms, but her glare softens.

"I can picture it," he continues, "you reading, and me listening to music next to you. Open window."

They both blush at the undercurrent of the romantic in the imagery, but she tries to keep her head above water. "And every once in a while," she responds with a slight embarrassed stutter, "you say something rude to me, and I kick your ass out of my apartment."

"And I just laugh," he says, "because I probably deserve it."

They break their unified gaze and sink into a comfortable quiet. She tries to focus on paling her ruddy cheeks, but it remains difficult with the way her mind runs back and back again to the idea of them sharing warmth, on the thought of being able to put her head in his lap without asking - and without having to - because he'll be so used to it he will expect it.

After another hour the blaze starts to die out. The silver tendrils of smoke thicken and fold into the pinprick stars. She watches a few other couples and friends leave and then rises.

"Well," she says as she rips the blanket from him, "since we're neighbors, we may as well walk home together."

Soul shivers without the blanket (and without her nearness). "True." He grabs his empty beer bottle and they shuffle through the sand together.

Maka is cautious as they walk down the second floor hall, avoids every squeaky floorboard and rusted nail. She can maneuver through any part of town blindfolded, and she is not sure how to feel about it. She stops at her door: 203. She turns around to face him. "Well, this is my stop. Have a good night, Soul. See you bright and early in the morning."

He restrains a chuckle. "You will absolutely see me bright and early." He shuffles to his door: 205. "I'm your neighbor I guess. Lucky you."

She nearly chokes. "Yeah. Lucky me." Without another word she unlocks her door, rushes in, and slams it behind her. She lets out a deep breath as she slides to her floor with her back still against the door. "Lucky me," she murmurs. "Lucky me."

A salt-sweetened breeze slides in from her open window.


	2. Chapter 2

The alarm does not need to wake her. A sliver of pollen-stained sunlight through the slits in her blinds is enough to shake her out of bed.

She waits for her tea-water to come to a full boil, and then stands with her skull-engraved mug on her rickety porch as she always does. It creaks when she steps out and a few small shards of wood prick at her bare feet.

She inhales the lemongrass steam that rises from her drink, and soaks in the first real summer-borne sunrise in the distance. It burns the morning chill from the swaying blades of grass. It is a lot pinker than the last few she's seen still drenched in lingering snowy cold. It is like the sky is blushing, apologetic for the harsh clouds it once brought here, dropping hail and frost and misery. There is also a pale gold stream mixed in, and she thinks of chipped seashells and loose ribbon as it surfaces over the whispering ocean.

She hears another porch whine and turns to see her new, bleary-eyed neighbor glaring at her.

"You look hungover," she says, withholding a smile.

"These walls are way too thin," he groans. His voice is like gravel, sandpaper. Rough, but stern with a smoothing purpose. "I could hear you breathing all night."

"Slow down, Edward."

He runs a hand through his untamed, alabaster hair. She has memories of snow again and shudders. "What?" he mumbles.

Maka waves it off. "Sparkly stalker vampires in mainstream media."

"Sorry. Not in touch with my inner 14-year old girl."

"Really? I never would have guessed. You wake up like one."

"Feisty at 4:30 AM." He smiles just the slightest, and she catches a glimpse of his razor-edge teeth. "Somehow, I like it."

She hides the ruddy shade of her cheeks in the veil of rising light. "Let's get to work. I'll make you some coffee when we get there. Gotta prepare you for Labor Day Weekend."

He leans against his porch door and closes his eyes. "Extra sugar, no cream."

His teeth are sharp, but sweet, she thinks.

* * *

><p>He often finds her at the end of his shifts in the shallows of her office, sinking not-so-gracefully in accounting records and still-unpaid bills, some curled at the edges with the slow-rising humidity. Her hair is - as it is right now - usually down, and falls in a slight-frizzed dusted-blonde curtain just a bit past her small shoulders and her thin and exposed collarbone that continues to draw his eyes. Her hands hold her head up now; the only reason his gaze lands so often on her open skin is because her emerald eyes are lost to an unruly amount of paperwork; she looks unnatural and awkward in this light, like a land animal thrown to sea and left to struggle. There is no sparkle to her stare – ever - in this stifling spare room.<p>

He remembers when Liz called him a few weeks ago with a suggestion. But mostly, he remembers sitting across from Maka's father alone at dinner just a day ago, the guilt of his new secret, and the weight of her dad's words hit him like a punch to the gut.

"_We're not against her, we're for her. As you get closer to her, you'll understand why she needs this. You'll want it, too." _

She looks like her dad now, cracked and overburdened.

He is quiet for a moment. He does not know her well enough to save her just yet. He never knows how to approach her in these moments of weakness on his own. He sits in the ancient office chair so cautiously it's almost like it might be covered in shattered glass. The stress that radiates from her soft skin throws small goosebumps onto his own.

She bites her bottom lip so hard for a moment he's afraid she'll draw blood. Her body is becoming a silent battlefield before his eyes.

Soul clears his throat, so gentle it almost gets lost in the trill of the ceiling fan, almost stuck in the thin spaces between her burdening stacks of envelopes.

She sucks in a sharp breath and he fidgets in his seat, wrings his new work cap. She shakes her head and he watches, momentarily captured, as her bangs and layers sweep back into place as if they'd never left. She smiles then, a little off-color. "Sorry, Soul. And thank you. I didn't even need to supervise you as long as I did. You can go home now, if you want." She scribbles another note to herself in an empty margin.

He scratches the back of his neck, sanguine eyes shifting as he leans forward. "You, uh, okay?"

Maka shoves more strength into her grin. "Just behind on paperwork."

"I'm sure." His stare returns to the overflowing checkbook stuffed beneath one of her hands. Her glare sobers him. "You know, it's only 3 o' clock."

She nods, eyebrows scrunched.

"I mean, you have time to catch up on... that." His voice cracks at the fringes.

"Get to the point."

"I need detergent. Deodorant. Hair gel. You need a break."

"Soul, what do you want?" Her voice is a blade.

"I need tour part two. I... don't know how to get to Target."

"I can let you borrow my GPS."

"I want to get to know you better," he blurts. His heart falls to the floor of his ribs and his stomach rises to his throat. Maka's father told him to try to open her up, but these were his own words and sentiments, and it scares him. Somewhere within he knows that what might unlock her could open him, too. He's diving into cold water without any sort of protection.

Her eyes widen saucer-size like his own, though her blush does not run as deep as his. She throws her hair into loose pigtails and shuffles some of her envelopes and notes. Maka cannot connect their gazes without a heart-skip. Her voice is breathless when she says, "Okay," and leads him out the door without another word.

Her car surprises him, as he expected quite a different caravan than the one they slide into. An antique Lincoln or Chevy, maybe. He even pictured her in a neon Scion TC. However, it's an aching Subaru Outback - a cornflower blue of some sort and wind-beaten tan - and it sits in her parking space, despite its fading colors and mismatched tires, like a proud family heirloom.

Soul straps on his seatbelt, but keeps it loose. She glares from the corner of her eye as she puts on her on and tightens it as much as it will go, to make a point. He laughs.

"Aren't these prone to all kinds of leaks? You know, expensive upkeep?" he asks as he swipes a finger across the marked dashboard; no dust. "Criss-crossed internal structure or something like that."

"Bad on gas, and yeah, a few pump leaks here and there that can get annoying, I'll admit." She starts the rusted engine with some words of encouragement to her vehicle. "But I was after safety rating, not maintenance fees."

"But you must not drive that much," he says.

"You don't have to drive far to be in danger." Her words are laced with a sadness so thick he does not speak another word. Hers have silenced him indefinitely.

He knew his inner layers and poisons ran deep, but they were easy to assume, black and white. Clear. Hers, he's starting to realize, are filled with a thousand shades of gray between the two ends.

He is scared he could get lost in that endless, unknown space. He sinks deeper into the leather seat. He thinks of the way certain bills get lost in her office, trapped between a few others and out of her notice after a while. He could become just another shade, a blur in her memory.

He gazes out the window as they pass more seashore, more small town. He wonders if anyone has ever tried to count every grain of sand in their spare time.

* * *

><p>She watches his gaze become bewildered the moment they move past the sliding doors. He stays in place with his mouth agape, and it's as if he's awakening for the first time as a ghost. Lost, disoriented, out-of-body. She wonders if she could put her hand right through him.<p>

"Uhh, Soul, I know why I had to drive you here, but do I have to guide you through the store, too?"

"Sorry." Clarity floods his red-edged eyes. "Sometimes I forget I'm not at home anymore. Every Target is really different."

"Luckily, every Target labels their aisles. I think you're going to make it out okay." She nudges him with her shoulder, and he catches a small whiff of some kind of raspberry and vanilla mix. "Let's go. I'll hold your hand if you get scared."

He grins. "Then what if I said I'm scared now?"

Maka puffs out her cheeks and stomps ahead, the sound of her flapping sandals overwhelming in the quiet of the store. "You should be!"

He follows her without fear, but with some distance.

He finds her by a basket of clearance toys, picking through it with such thought and care she could be filling in the empty boxes of a crossword. She removes a tacky, glitter-gunned baton. He is in shock as she whirls it around, grabs another two from the bin, and begins to juggle and spin them all at once.

Soul steps so close to her he feels the light breeze from the tosses. His eyes follow one baton briefly, then catch her wildfire gaze. "Have you done this your whole life or somethin'?"

She shakes her head but does not lose her pace or balance. "I was a baton twirler in high school." She smiles. "I was pretty popular then, believe it or not."

"I believe it."

She throws him an inquiring gaze.

"You got a light to you," he says. He did not fear her temper, but he fears the way her presence alone causes so many slips of his tongue, so much honesty.

Maka throws two back into the basket and continues to play with one, rolling it down her arm, across her shoulders. "A light?"

"Yeah. A... radiance. Almost like you've gotta bigger soul than most of us, I guess." He stutters. "Maybe it's got wings or something."

She catches the baton in one hand and bursts into laughter. "A winged soul? Do you even hear yourself?"

"I can see it right now. I see it a lot when you're laughing. Smiling." He makes an unclear series of hand gestures, and she laughs more, but starts up her twirling again.

"Slow down, Shakespeare. You're starting to woo me." She puts her free hand to her chest.

A thought flickers for such a brief time in his head -the flit of a hummingbird's wing, a lightening vein pulsing - he swears it never occurred: _How fast is her heart beating? _"Imagine if that baton were a scythe." His voice cracks.

She pivots with the last spin of the baton and stops with the edge of it pressed lightly to his neck. "That'd be a scary world, me wielding a scythe." She throws it into the basket to join the others, probably into eventual oblivion. "You have a lot of weird thoughts."

He slouches just the slightest. "Yeah. I guess." He turns away and wanders toward the aisles packed with detergent, with wrinkle-flattening sprays. He thinks of his shopping list, and ignores the buzz shaking his heart to the core.

Her heart stumbles, too. She's only known him a few days, but it feels like in another place and time, she's known him for a thousand. She takes a deep breath and trails after him.

"Let's hurry," she murmurs as he struggles to select a shampoo. "I have other places I want to show you on the tour today that can't be seen in every city and state in the US."

She tries to imagine, as they make their way back to her car, what his soul might be shaped like, what color it might be. She thinks maybe bronze, or orange. She thinks of music, of scythes and pin-striped suits. She thinks of sharp teeth, but a radiant, mischievous smile.

She wonders if their souls could ever match, meld.

* * *

><p>"We've been driving down long roads a while," he says, and the glass-shallow silence cracks.<p>

"You scared?" She smiles.

"Just in unfamiliar territory."

"I forgot you're used to the concrete jungles of New York."

"Everythin' kinda looks the same out here. And the sun is setting sorta quickly. Tree, tree, tree, curvy road. Dead body."

She rolls her eyes. "That's what the last guy I brought out here said to me."

He glares at her from his slump in her old leather seats. "You don't seem to be afraid of anything. I don't understand it."

"My mother used to say stubborn will is what keeps you alive."

"I can believe it. But come on," he murmurs as he rises a little in his seat, "you've gotta be afraid of _something. _Everyone has fears. If we didn't have fear, we wouldn't have courage."

"Tell me your fears first," she replies, her grin unwinding at the edges.

"One of my greatest fears is getting... too close to people," he admits without thought, without hesitation. "I'm afraid to let people in." Soul's eyes have wandered far from the reach of hers, clouded in retrospect. "Letting someone know all about me, and then they just up and leave. It's why I've... never quite been in a serious relationship. The idea that someone who knows every part of you could just disappear."

The Subaru hits a crater-sized hole in the road, and it gives them both a distracted moment to reflect.

Maka's mouth goes a little dry. Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and he watches her knuckles turn ghost-white. "That's a fear of mine, too. I can't say I've ever had a serious connection with anyone beyond my mother. Love is vulnerability."

"But it can be powerful as well, I guess, if you get it right."

"I certainly haven't ever gotten it right." A tiny smirk alights on her lips. "Can I tell you something? You can't ever tell anyone else."

She finds him staring intensely when she briefly glances in his direction, and blushes under the pressure of his sanguine eyes. He doesn't respond, just waits, like a haunting statue.

The smirk flutters off, though the mischievous glint to her eyes remains intact. "I slept with the entire football team in high school."

"You're kiddin' me. You seem like such a..." He gulps when she catches him nearly saying _prude, bookworm, rule-abiding citizen. _"Like, you just wouldn't do that." Soul looks away once more, and plays with the antiquated roll-up windows.

"I used to twirl batons with fire on the ends. I can draw quite a crowd when I try. But I could never be anchored."

He snorts.

"Now tell me something," she says. "Try to top that."

He sighs. "I don't think I have anything that competes with such an accomplishment."

"Try."

"I dealt some pot in high school."

She waits.

"Mainly to the librarian and the principal."

After a long pause, she bursts into laughter.

He wonders why he ever thought she could be prude.

She pulls over on a mainly-vacant side street, scattered with a few overpriced, oversized houses with tar-top driveways as smooth as polished stone and lawns so green the blades could have been cut from the emerald in her eyes. Despite the magazine-perfect appearance, no cars are parked, and no lights or life flicker in the windows no matter how hard he stares. He grimaces, thinks of all the post-apocalyptic stories he's read and prepares himself.

"Copper Lantern Lane," she says as she stands beside him. "My mother actually wanted to buy a house here just because of the name, but no other families every moved here, so she and my father decided against it. But sometimes she would still drive me here for walks."

The answer to the shape and color of his soul bursts into her head: a copper lantern. She wonders if some part of her mother knew, somehow, that this sort of light would eventually come into her life, all bronze-shine and sharp-teeth. She was always like that, able to predict things no one else would ever guess. Things that never really seemed as if they would be important until they occurred.

"Come on." Maka puts her hands on his shoulders and turns him away from the eerie neighborhood. "This actually isn't the main attraction of this trip. I'll take you to the real treasure."

Soul follows her, but steals glances behind them, as if expecting some kind of mutant creature to leap out from the neatly-trimmed bushes at any second. "This is no treasure," he grumbles.

They cross a cracked road curved like a stream into rolling hills, the pavement still warm underfoot from the direct exposure to a new summer sun. They walk a wooded path beside an abandoned cranberry bog. She weaves over the root-spined terrain like a shadow, fluid and silent.

"Again," he says between heaving breaths, "your lack of fear is horrifying."

"There aren't zombies out here."

He stops short. "How did you even know I was thinking that?"

"I've got a super brain. That's why I have no fear."

"Bullshit."

"Try to disprove it after I just read your mind."

"This is stupid and making it harder to catch my breath."

Without thinking, she grabs his hand and strength seems to enter his muscles and bones once again. He thinks it must be adrenaline from the idea of the undead in the nearby trees and lakes.

"Just a little longer," she promises, and he grips her hand tighter with some sort of hope and hangs on for dear life as she leads him up one last hill. "Here." They struggle up the last few inches of a grassy knoll between two blossoming trees.

Soul takes a deep breath, then looks forward. He smiles in the wake of hers.

Miles of out-of-season cranberry bogs stretch over various hills and around some stubby trees and beaten-dirt paths. The grasses sprouting through after being picked look like they've been rough-streaked by an inexperienced painter, ruddy and dried-golden. The trees at the borders are thickening with new leaves, and he can smell them, even from hundreds of feet away. The sunset drenches it all in jaded orange and pink. He can see some stars poking through.

"This is a treasure," he admits, and he plops down beside her on the soft ground.

She leans back. "I know."

"Why'd you show me this?" he asks.

She takes a moment. "I guess so we'll learn to trust each other. We did agree to be partners for the summer. I think this proves we can rely on each other."

"As long as we don't get eaten on the way back." He laughs as she shoves him.

The breeze carries the sour scent of old, wild cranberries, and the muskier scent of oak. He's not used to wind without a grease-coating, the fumes of speeding taxis and hot dog stands. He's used to being surrounded by all sorts of noise - horns blaring, chatter, street vendors. He remembers how, in a crowd of people, he could feel disconnected.

And now, with just one other person, he feels more connected than ever.

He tries to ignore the black blood thoughts in his head, tries to force back the fear of being known by someone other than himself.

* * *

><p>"There's someone here to see you," Liz says, peeking into the office, attempting to find Maka behind the stacks of paperwork. "It's a little girl. She's got a funky hairstyle and a hot dad."<p>

Maka nods as she writes another set of numbers down. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Also, Maka?"

"Yes, Liz?"

"Take a break every once in a while, all right? We're all kind of worried about you. Or, at least, I know Patti and I are." She chews a gum with more effort.

"I'll do the best I can, but summer actually keeps us busy."

"Yeah, yeah," the waitress mumbles. "I'll be out back for ten minutes since the morning crowd died down."

"Liz?"

"Yes, Maka?"

"I'll take a break from this when you quit smoking."

"Whatever. I guess we're even for now, then." Liz huffs and walks out the back door into the grease-trap alley.

Maka walks to the front and before she can get the swinging kitchen door all the way open, a young girl is in her arms, grinning. She laughs. "Hi, Angela. How are you and your dad?" She holds the girl more carefully as she spots Mifune in a booth in the distance and starts to make her way there.

"Good, now that we're back here and I don't have homework! Dad says he's going to teach me how to go underwater this year. He bought me goggles. Can I show you them?"

She smiles. "Yeah, I'd love to see them." She puts Angela down and the girl rockets toward the booth, grabbing the bright-purple goggles off the table and putting them in Maka's outstretched hands. She admires them for a moment, the smile never leaving. "These are awesome! I wish I could get a pair."

"I'll ask dad to buy you a pair, and then you come with me underwater. I am gonna swim to the island."

Maka restrains a laugh at Mifune's wide-eyed response to his daughter's ambitions.

Soul watches them interact for a few minutes from the kitchen window, then joins Liz in the alley with a cigarette of his own. He leans against the wall beside her, and holds out the tip to her lighter.

"You know," Liz starts, "Maka hates the smell of cigarettes." She takes a long drag of hers, then releases into the sun-shy alleyway. "Can't say I blame her, though."

"Liz, I'm… this whole plan to take Maka out of here… There's no way it's going to work. She's a huge part of this place." He tries to fight the urge to smoke. "And I think I'm starting to like her too much. It's going to complicate things. Because I'm really just… a pawn in a plan you and her father conjured up. It seems like even a relationship between us would seem planned."

"Why would it complicate things? That was half the point. I thought you two would be a good match, but I never put a gun to your head and told you to start crushing on her. You and Maka started the feeling thing on your own. It's natural." The tip of her cigarette flares and then fades as ashes fall from it to her feet. "God knows you both need some love in your life. You're not just a pawn, you're part of the end game. You both benefit from whatever forms so long as neither of you fucks it up, like I know the two of you tend to do in matters of the heart."

"I was just watching her from the kitchen, Liz. Everyone here knows her, and adores her. She's as much a part of this town as the sand and sea is." He does not bother to take a drag; he tosses it onto the ground like trash and crushes the flame with his heel.

"The town will move on, just like people tend to do. Like we all did, or are trying to do." She flicks her half-cigarette onto his, her eyes coated in some kind of nostalgic thought he knows he can't clear behind tar-stricken smoke and old brick buildings. "She needs it. She needs out of here, like she always deserved."

"But is it what she _wants_?" Soul turns to her and her gaze does not back down from his in the slightest; the eyes of a warrior meet his dead on. "Would it really make her happy?"

"It's what she _needs_," she says again.

"Shouldn't _she_ be the one to decide what _she _needs?"

"She will. She's a smart girl." Liz ties her hair back up. "She just needs a little nudge in the right direction, and we're giving it to her." She pushes him lightly. "And she needs a good man to back her up when she finally breaks free of this place." The waitress returns to her shift behind the swinging white doors.

* * *

><p>Soul and Maka talk on the porch every morning now before they walk to work, their hands sometimes brushing. Yesterday, she told him that in the summer she always leaves her window open a crack so she can hear the ocean, as she can't sleep in the humid-heavy heat without that refreshing sound nearby.<p>

There's no way he'd feel like a hero, drawing her in and dragging her away to beeping horns and never-dying lights. He slumps against the cold-brick wall.

There's no way he'd be a hero, if he earned her heart while having the advantage. They're both tangled in the webs weaved by her best friend and father. He tries to hear the sounds of the waves in the shadows of the alley. He tries to block out the sounds of Liz and Spirit convincing him it's all for her best, despite never having talked about it with Maka first. He tries to forget that he's known a little about her for years from stories Liz has told him.

He tries to push out the realization that he might always be a step ahead of her, that he's doing things behind her back as well - never at her side.

He doesn't know what's good for any of them, anymore.

All he knows is she's too easy to fall in love with.


	3. Chapter 3

She's not on the porch when he steps out one thick-air morning in early July. He tries to ignore the disappointment in his gut. He's not much of a coffee-in-the-morning kind of guy, but her little burst of energy, her reassuring smile and chatter had become the kinda-thing for him, that jolt that he was starting to yearn for. He feels the vacancy of it, and a small headache swells. He leans on the shifty banister of his porch and watches ashen skies grow darker, sees the first sets of spiraling waves that would later swallow up the whole shore. He smells electricity hanging in the air, and knows this is going to be a rough one.

Soul waits a few more moments to make sure she's not just waking late by accident, then makes his way, alone, to the restaurant.

Maybe it's for the best, he thinks. Maybe he needs to start burning that bridge.

He walks by the tourist paraphernalia store where the older owner is setting up shop, and sees a stand with sea glass shards on thick rope necklaces. He has a flash in his mind of her eyes, seemingly stained with the greenest paints of the sea.

She is just as much a part of this place as the water.

Liz greets him at the locked door. She gives him an inquisitive look when she doesn't see her boss at his side, and he returns the stare.

"She's," he starts hesitantly, "not here yet?" He stuffs his hands in his pockets. An early-storm wind curls through his unkempt hair.

She shakes her head, and bites her bottom lip. "I think I know why, and it's not good."

"I figure it can't be good, for her to not be here." He sighs.

"She's gotta still be in her apartment," she says. She breaks their gazes to unlock the door with her own, rarely-used key. "Patti and I can handle this place for the day, so I need you to do me a favor. She's going to probably be locked in her room. Weather like this gets her frazzled, and bad. I need you to help her."

"Liz, if this some kind of emotional turmoil thing, I can't handle that... I... We just can't get too attached, and this is the sorta thing that-" He startles and goes silent when she slaps a hand on his shoulder and meets his gaze again, her eyes like two swords straight into his heart.

"Listen to me, kid." She shakes him, a strength more vicious than the mounting swirls of wind. "I understand why you feel the way you do, and I'm sorry you two are connecting under these circumstances. But I'm going to tell you something... I met Maka when I was 18, and she was 15. This town is beautiful, but there's a lot of drug crime here. Things get boring in the off-season, and Patti and I were thoroughly involved." Her grip softens. "We had no one except each other. We had nothing. Maka found us in alley after we'd been robbed bad and wrong, and she took us to the restaurant, and she and her mom cleaned us up."

He does not say a word, like he's lost his lungs, his tongue.

"And Maka told her mom to give us jobs. And they did. And they took us in until we could be on our own. We sat at their damned dinner table, and we ate with them every night. We left the streets. That girl saved me, saved my sister. She means the world to me. You gotta know that I would never do anything I didn't think was good for her. And you know how much I loved your brother, Soul. And how much I care about you." She lets go of him. "I would never do anything I believed could break the two of you. So please, go. She'll appreciate your presence, and anything that evolves from it is natural." She shoves him back in the direction of their apartment complex.

He nods, still unsure of what to say. But he can imagine it - an even tinier version of Maka - seeing two young girls bruised to bits in an alley and instead of asking questions, instead of turning away in disgust, she takes them home without a word and melds them into her family. She's always had the light he knows now.

Soul makes his way up the stairs, and knocks on her door. The sound of rain pelting the glass of her windows is all that greets him.

"Maka?" he calls. A response never comes. He knocks again. Nothing.

He feels like a burglar as he pulls an old gift card out of his wallet and fiddles with the lock until it comes loose. He steps in as quietly as a robber, and shuts the door slowly behind him.

He first notices that all of her windows are shut and locked. He remembers, again, how she told him that when she's home she always has to hear the waves to be comfortable, to feel at home. Her bedroom door is shut tight and locked. He knows he should go to her, but he travels to her bookcase first, about to collapse from the pressure of all of the oversized books that weigh down her ancient shelves.

He smiles at the section overflowing with Nicolas Sparks books, organized alphabetically. There are cookbooks from a variety of places: Chile, Jamaica, Vietnam. Some aren't even in English, but the pages are curled at the edges - some yellowed - as if they've been used thousands of times since they appeared in her hands. He also notices three separate books on hummingbirds, and tons of books of poetry, most of which he's never heard of beyond the Robert Frost anthology. They all looked like they have been chosen carefully from yard sales, from library basements. He knows those are the sorts of places she ventures.

Soul knocks on her door, a whisper of a sound. He wonders if she heard the rasp of his knuckles over the sheets of rain sliding down her windows.

The door whips open and the barrel of a gun is pointed at his chest, wielded by a hand shaking more than the boats left at the dock. Her gaze is animalistic, like prey in the shadow of the lion. There's no life in them, just a sheer and chilling blankness behind wide eyes.

He holds his hands up and backs away. "Please don't shoot! It's me." He feels like he has to clarify; she's got the eyes of the ghost and a shining weapon. "Soul. Your neighbor. Your talented chef."

Maka's eyes flood with tears in an instant, and the gun clatters onto her floor. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I'm sorry I startled you. It's my fault. It's my fault I barged in on a crazy woman with a gun." The joke isn't featherlight enough for the boulders weighing her heart. She starts to cry. "Shit, Maka. Shit. Stop. I'm sorry."

"That's a pellet gun," she blubbers. "I stole it from Black Star when we were in middle school. He still doesn't know." She holds her face in her hands. "Don't tell him, please. It just makes me feel safer because it looks like a real gun and I can't kill anyone with it."

"Okay," he says, trying not to laugh at the words spilling from her mouth. He walks closer. "I won't tell anyone it's fake. I won't tell him you stole it. Nothing."

She nods, but goes quiet.

"Please stop," he groans. "I don't know how to handle crying girls."

"I'm a woman," she murmurs.

Soul takes one of her hands and pries it from where it seems glued to her face. He guides her to the couch, and when they sit, he places her head in his lap, where she continues to cry. He takes the blanket from the back of the couch and lays it across her despite the stifle of the apartment air.

He can't resist playing with the edges of her hair free from its usual pigtails. It's as soft as he imagined since the moment he met her, where it splayed across her collarbone.

"How'd you find me?" she whispers as she leans into his other hand.

"Liz told me you'd probably be here. And I figured something was up when I saw that your windows weren't open."

"Did she... tell you why?" He hates the way her voice cracks.

He shakes his head. "And I won't ask."

She grabs the hand playing with the fringes of her hair. "Let me tell you. But promise me something."

"Okay." He intertwines their fingers.

"For everything I tell you, I want you to tell me something."

He hesitates, but collapses at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes. "Fair enough."

"My mother passed away a while ago. Not long after I graduated university," she admits. "When she died, time froze for me. She passed away in a car accident." She trembles.

"Maka, you don't have to-"

"It was in this exact kind of weather. A summer storm. So much rain. Skies so dark you'd think it was night. Lightning strikes. So many it was like the sky had veins, coursing blood. A pickup truck on the other side of the road hit a puddle, and fishtailed. It slammed straight into her car, a real tiny car, and it flipped and rolled down a steep hill. Over and over. It was... not left in good condition." The tears flow again, and he wipes a few from her cheek, his expression breaking with her own. "She was going to get a picture of the three of us at my graduation framed for my birthday. My dad and I... fell apart. We fought all the time, and usually over who was more at fault. Neither of us was, but in that grief everything seems rational. Everyone's thinking about what they could have done to change the outcome. I don't... like this kind of rain."

"I can see why." He hears the writer in her in her descriptions, hears the Frost and Wilke that line her bookshelves that she undoubtedly read over and over in her childhood.

She's glad he at least doesn't melt, or cry with her. He doesn't apologize like so many others, or say the cookie-cutter things like, "At least she's in a better place now," or, "It's not your fault." He looks to her with eyes full of a complex understanding, and says something simple that puts her at ease.

"Here," he murmurs as he slides his iPod out of his pocket. He puts his headphones over her ears. "My turn to tell you something."

"How can you tell me something with music?"

He glares, and even pouts a little. She laughs. "This is _my _music, and every part of me is in it. You figure out these songs, and you'll know me."

"Has anyone else ever heard these?" she asks as he shifts through hundreds of albums and playlists.

"Just my brother," he says as he selects a song.

She closes her eyes, and is ensconced in the murky piano pieces. The smile fades, and some tears form again.

He runs a hand through his hair self-consciously when he knows the songs have ended, some half-finished, some overdone. "So?"

Maka knocks on his heart gently, the way he had on her door just moments before. "It's dark in there, huh?"

His smile is forlorn.

* * *

><p>"Is blueberry picking okay?" she asks as he slides into her passenger seat. "You asked to do at least one touristy thing, but besides kayaking, that's about it."<p>

"Sounds good to me, but... if we're blueberry picking, why are dressed for kayaking?" He cannot look in her direction without a burn to his cheeks. She wears a hot pink bikini top and jean shorts, and they ride up every time she leans forward in the seat.

"I told her to wear that," Tsubaki murmurs from the backseat. "It's hot."

"You're not wearing one, and it's also 6 PM," Soul retorts, "it'll start to cool off in a hour."

"Then you'll have to warm her up," Black Star chimes in, and Soul and Maka blush and shout for him to shut up.

"Why'd you bring them?" Soul groans as he sinks so far into the seat he might meld into it.

"Don't worry," Black Star says with an uproarious laugh, "we'll give you guys time alone."

Maka turns up the radio as they pull away.

"Seriously," Soul whispers into her ear - too close, she thinks - as they walk far behind Tsubaki and her clowning boyfriend, "why did you bring them? And why are you wearing that?"

"They're our friends, and why does it matter? You call me tiny-tits on a near-daily basis. I thought men were only into watermelon breasts, anyway." She crosses her arms over her chest as they meander down an abandoned dirt path lined with sun-dried bushes and spiraling trees.

"Not all men are into big boobs. That's sexist," he blurts. "Some men like them small. Easier to handle." He trips after his ridiculous statement and stays on the ground with his face covered, as if he worries she'll read the terrible thoughts bouncing off the center of his mind through his eyes alone. When he turns, she's kneeling by him, and he accidentally stares directly at her chest for a moment before meeting her heated, inquisitive gaze.

"Are you... some men?" she pries, and he rolls back over to face away from her, into dirt and pebbles and anything other than her face.

"When you guys are done fucking each other with your eyes, we'll be over here," Black Star shouts.

"They're our friends," she repeats, more to herself than him. She helps Soul up, and they meet in a small clearing.

"Why didn't we go to a normal place?" Black Star whines as Maka disperses some ancient tupperware between them, old Nestle dough tins and recycled takeout boxes.

"Because we'd have to pay and pick a certain amount, and these blueberries taste just as good and we can take just what we need home with us."

"Yeah, if we can find any."

"Let's split up then. You and Tsubaki head toward the tree-line, and we'll go in the opposite direction."

Black Star slaps a hand on her slight-pinkened shoulder. "Be careful when you guys start stripping, because some of these bushes might have thorns."

Tsubaki just grins when Maka kicks him in the groin and stomps into the bushes without another word. Soul follows her, lead alone by the sound of her angry gait.

She stops a good distance away and inspects a smaller bush, picking through some already-shriveled blueberries. He's amazed by how she always seems so focused, from cooking to crosswords and now to blueberry picking. She takes almost everything seriously. He thinks about his earlier boob-size statement and nearly throws up in his mouth.

"So," he says as he catches up to her, "how did you know this place was here?"

"My mother," she answers. "Though back when I used to come with her, this was an actual farm." Her smile is small, but sweet, like the wild berries, he observes. "I just still come here every year even though the farm is gone, since the blueberries never stopped growing. Since they've been growing on her own," she continues, "they've got a different taste."

"Good or bad?" he asks as he stoops with her at the same bush.

"Good. Natural. Almost like they were always meant to be here."

They pluck at the same few bushes for a while before they both sit side by side on the moss-and-dirt-coated ground, long untouched by other people. The sun has sucked away their energy and disappeared, as if it needs to borrow some of their light for the next morning.

He goes to say something, but she stops him with a finger to his lips and grins.

"Wait," she whispers, and after a few heartbeats, tiny green lanterns flicker around them.

He thought he'd seen every shade of green in her eyes, but that of the fireflies is different. He smiles with her and holds out a slightly-sticky hand, and one alights on his palm. The light is on, then off. On, then off. One lands on her shoulder and she laughs, but not loud enough to scare it.

"You know," she says so quiet he thinks he might be imagining it, "there's another reason I come here."

Soul shifts closer to her in the warm dirt.

"The year after my mother passed away, they started appearing. I almost felt like she knew I'd still always come here and she sent them somehow." She leans back and closes her eyes, almost as if she were absorbing some of their light the way the sun had stolen theirs earlier. "I hope they never go away."

"Yeah." He gulps, and without thinking he's moving toward her, and she opens her eyes when she feels his breath ghosting her lips.

"Is this why you wanted us to come alone?" she murmurs as they lock gazes.

He swallows another lump rising in his throat. "What if I say yes?"

"Then you... might have to do what you're thinking of doing right now," she says.

He watches her chest rise and fall faster and faster the closer he moves.

They both roll apart from each other when they hear the rustle and breaking of branches and Black Star yell, "Are you guys almost done yet? We're ready to go!"

The fireflies scatter, as if only brought to life by their quiet, undisturbed affection.

"Yes, we're done," Maka replies, running in the direction of the harbormaster's booming voice.

The ride home is as silent as the clouds that slide by the moon. She leaves the radio off, as she wouldn't be able to hear it over the sound of her own thoughts.

"_Then you... might have to do what you're thinking of doing right now..."_

* * *

><p>She avoids him as best she can. She slips into her office and locks the door behind her. She wakes up just five minutes earlier and slips away from their morning walks and chats - though she misses them. When he tries to get a hold of her at the restaurant in the down time, she speeds out front to wipe down tables, refill bottles of ketchup. She scrabbles for any excuse to not have to face him after their night among the blueberries and fireflies, the night their breaths mingled and her urge to kiss him was at its peak.<p>

She's not sure when it happened, but she knows it's there. It is like her vision is blurred in one corner of her mind - the fragment that holds the matters of the heart. It's an image not yet fully formed or clear, but there. She knew their physical attraction was strong straight from their first meeting, but she's had that with others before. This is different, she knows, because of the way her heart hammers relentlessly when he's near her, the way she calculates what she says for fear she'll something wrong, or embarrassing. The way she rolls their conversations over and over again in her head, the way she studies every text he sends her like an ancient relic.

She's got a humongous schoolgirl crush on her chef, and she's not sure what to do with it. It has no instruction manual, no guidebook or distinct list of steps. She's never felt such a yearning for another human before. Maka has never in her life wondered what another person would taste like, _feel _like, be like in her presence. She has never imagined what it would be like to hold someone's hand, or to have him hold her in a cautious embrace beneath thin sheets.

She figures the best way to go about these uncontrollable feelings and thoughts is simply to step around them like a muddied puddle in the center of a sidewalk. It's glaringly obvious, but there are still ways to move past the obstacle without retaining too much damage.

But Marie's words pound at the edges of her heart: _"__I'm not saying you should force yourself to date if you don't want to – absolutely not - but if love finds you, you should give it a chance."_

She falls to her floor and lets out a disgruntled, slight-silent screech. She only stops when she sees what date is circled on her puppy calendar.

* * *

><p>She picks up a container stacked with some fine-China dishes and attempts to leave the apartment building without emitting a single sound.<p>

She wanders down a familiar side street lined with candy-shuttered houses. She smiles when she sees two kids running rampant in their yard with tiny sparklers. She tries to shake off the images of fireflies.

Maka stops when she walks long past the seaside neighborhoods and enters a small cluster of trees. She takes a deep breath, and flips the lid from the container. Inside is a stack of four bone-pearl dishes, covered in art of women working rice paddy fields, men guiding ox off in the distance.

She runs her hand over the dip in the plate for a brief moment before she flicks it like a frisbee toward the center tree, and watches it shatter to bits in seconds.

She jumps when she hears a sharp intake of breath behind her. She picks her fake gun off the ground and points it in the stranger's direction, and nearly pushes the trigger when she catches a glimpse of sharp teeth and crimson eyes.

"Soul!" she shouts. "What are you doing?"

"I'll answer the question when you put that stupid thing down," he yells back. "How many times do you think you'll have that aimed at me before the summer is over?"

"As many times as you sneak up on me in the worst ways! You should know by now that I'm always prepared for the worst."

"And you got the best."

Even in the thick shade and with only dim sunset light, she sees his eyebrows wiggle and drops her gun. "What do you want? I'm busy."

"Breaking dishes?"

"It's a complicated thing," she says as she turns her back to him and tosses another plate into fractured oblivion beneath the pines. Her heart beats erratically, and she wishes there were some way she could tether it to normality. But it's a bird without bars and it cannot be contained. She bites her bottom lip when she hears him close in on her.

"Tell me," he murmurs. He does not step much further.

"You're not really keeping your part of the bargain, partner," she replies. "You promised me for everything I tell you, you tell me one thing. All I've really gotten from you is your favorite cereal."

He smirks. "Booberry."

Maka faces back toward him with her tongue out. "Count Chocula is way better."

"They're basically cocoa puffs. Booberry is its own unique flavor."

She huffs and thrusts one of the last of the dishes. They both flinch at the force of the break, as if it bends something within them when it scatters.

"All right," he says after a moment of silence, "I'll tell you two of my biggest secrets after you finish with your explanation of this... insanity. I promise."

She thinks of their almost-kiss at the raspy tone to his voice and tries to hide the shiver that follows. "Okay," she says.

She holds the last dish in her hands. "Every year on my mother's birthday, I break, burn, or toss something of hers out to sea. It's generally stuff like this, you know. Plates. Silverware. Jewelry." She runs a finger along a blue-painted pathway on the dish. "This is pretty much the last of it."

"Won't that... kinda make you forget? Aren't you supposed to keep that kind of stuff?"

"My mother's best friend, Marie, had just gone through the loss of her husband a few years prior to my mom's passing," she starts, "and she told me to do this. And it makes sense. I keep the important stuff: the pictures, mostly. I get rid of the little things that we tended to use on a daily basis. And it helped me feel better. It's because it's the little things we miss the most. The dinners we ate on these plates, the sight of her jewelry without her neck beneath it. The smell of her perfumes. Those things would send me back into full depths of grief." She grips the plate tighter. "But the pictures, those were the good times. And the memories that I conjure on my own are always the good times. Moments we would never be able to relive even if she was still here. When I can control the memories, I feel less sadness. They're not triggered by dishes like this. They're triggered just on my own, so they... generally are happier times." She turns back to him. "Does that... make sense?"

His smile aches with familiarity. "It does, actually." He stuffs a hand deep into one of his pockets and pulls out some sort of mini-violin, and shows it to her on his palm. She fingers it lightly for a moment before meeting his gaze. "My brother used to say that I sucked at violin, but no one could mess up one this tiny. He had the stupidest jokes." He laughs, quiet and filtered through hazy memories. "I bought him a tiny piano the year after. So, secret one," he continues before he launches the violin into shambles with the remainders of the plates. "The reason I showed up in this town was not to get away from my brother, but from the memories of him. He passed away in a car accident in April. It was still cold."

Maka takes his hand. "Let's do secret two at my house over coffee." She squeezes it, and they walk back to their apartment building in thoughtful quiet.

She wonders what that tiny violin sounded like, when it could still be played.

"I thought you hated coffee," he says as they enter her apartment.

"I... strongly prefer tea," she replies as she wanders behind her marbled kitchen island. He listens to the clang of shifting pots and pans as she searches for something in her cabinets, and plucks out a French press. "But there is good coffee out there." She places it on the island. "It's just that you have to make it yourself." She turns back around and opens a top cabinet, and struggles to reach an organic tin of coffee on the upper shelf.

She goes stock still when she feels him right behind her, reaching for the same can. Her mouth goes dry in just one breath and it feels like her chest might cave in if she were to turn around.

He puts the tin on the counter in front of her, but does not move from his place behind her, the two of them just barely touching.

"Soul?" she asks, staring intently at the coffee.

"Secret two," he says, and she swears she hears his voice shatter. "Don't turn around for this, because... if you do, I'll fuck it up."

She waits.

"I'm... really drawn to you, in a way I can't... explain well. I'm... maybe it's... I'm really, really drawn to you. I... really want to be with you. A lot." He loses his breath after the confession, and he leans on the back of her neck and she's stuck, she's become a statue in his stumbling proximity. "And I've... never wanted to be with someone this way before, so I'm sorry if... I do fuck it up somehow. But I mean what I say."

The open windows throw in almost-August drafts, ensconced in drizzling humidity and sweltering ocean. She tries to suck in that air and not his, so close and full of a really musky cologne that she wants to drown in and the faintness of the smoky scent of the grill.

After she steadies herself, she does a slow turn, almost as if they're starting a dance. When she meets his gaze, he leans forward, one hand on either side of her on the counter.

"You know what I'm thinking of doing," he says. "Is it okay?"

Her tongue is tied. She nods, and closes her eyes.

She nearly smiles when he hesitantly kisses her. It's almost like her lips are on fire and he's afraid of the burn at first. He's slow and deliberate and nervous, and she joins him in the trembling movements at the same pace. He pulls back a few times to stare into his eyes, asking for permission silently over and over. She finally gains her normal bravery and shifts all her weight to her toes and tries for a more fervent kiss. He feeds off of her audacity and his tongue is running against hers, and she gasps when he gets a step ahead of her and runs a hand alongside one of her breasts.

He smirks against their kiss, but loses his arrogance when she shifts her lips to his neck.

"Bedroom," she whispers against his skin.

And suddenly, she's in control and he's okay with it.

* * *

><p>When she returns from the bathroom, she slides under the sheets with him, and he pulls her close, her head on his chest, his arm wound tight around her, as if afraid she'll fall away without his strength. Her finger wanders again to the scar that runs from his shoulder to his hip.<p>

"I was following behind my brother on my motorcycle on a dark road on a Saturday night. We were returning from some classical concert I still can't remember. I try not to remember." He plays with the fringes of her hair. "A car on the other side of the road veered right into his lane, hit him head on. I turned sharply to the right and drove straight down a cliff. I fell off my motorcycle and rolled and rolled for what felt like forever. Branches got me, and maybe more. I don't remember much. I blacked out." He leans his head back, and closes his eyes. "Maybe sometimes it's good not to remember. I woke up in a hospital, all slashed to bits, it felt like. After spending some time there and after my brother's funeral, I escaped. And I... came here."

"I'm sorry," she says.

"I know. You understand."

She grabs his other hand with hers, and intertwines their fingers.

The wordless touching she's always wanted comes so easy with him, she thinks.

"We definitely disagree on cereal," she whispers, "but our souls are on the same level, huh?"

"Yeah. Maybe that's why I ended up here of all places."

She smiles, faint. "I hope so. I really like the idea of soulmates existing."

She sleeps so soundly in his arms that night. He smells her cinnamon-vanilla mix like a smoke she breathes out as it surrounds them. The cinnamon, he thinks as he takes it in, has an singeing spice to it that reminds him of her father's cologne the night Spirit pulled him aside. It was only the seventh day of his new job, back in May. His heart even then may have already been bent to Maka's whims and nature.

Her father was her opposite in a lot of ways. His hair was near-cherry red and long and reminded him of red tide; his eyes were blue and bloodshot and laden with many sleepless days and nights. He looked like every man who had lost too much too fast: haggard, quiet, pensive. Soul figured that much of what Maka was came from her mother.

Spirit dragged him to a 24-hour diner far from town. He introduced himself very briefly over a steaming mug of black coffee. He was Mr. Albarn, co-founder of the restaurant. He was a retired construction worker of some kind. Spirit didn't inquire further, only said he needed a favor.

"_Have you ever wondered,"_ Spirit asked,_ "if it was possible to count every grain of sand?"_

"_That'd be like counting to infinity,"_ Soul said.

"_I know part of the reason Liz suggested this town to you... was because she had talked a lot about Maka, and thought you two would... connect."_ The weary man grits his teeth, and Soul spots some of his old spark, like a dusted-pane lantern. _"If you do me this favor, I'll give you my blessing."_

"_Um... I just barely met her. I'm not going to ask her to marry me just yet." _He clears his throat.

"_You will."_

Soul leans back into the booth. _"How do you know?"_

"_She's a one-of-a-kind girl. She's got a soul like a riptide that'll just pull you right in. I can tell you're already drowning a bit."_

He smiles, though small. _"Fine. What do you need?"_

"_I need you to take her away from this town. She needs to live her own dreams, as she's been trapped in my ghost dreams too long. Her mother's. This is for her own good. Do what you have to do to get her out." _He clasps his hands around the mug, and Soul notices the wedding ring still wrapped around his finger. _"She wanted to be a New York City journalist, you know."_

"_What if she finds out about this plan of yours? What happens if I have to lose one of the best things I've ever come across?"_

"_You won't."_

Soul watches her breathe a little while longer before he starts to drift asleep. He wonders how long it would take to count every eyelash, hair, shade of green in her stare. He wonders if he'll be around long enough to do it.


	4. Chapter 4

He hovers in her office threshold for a few moments before he finally speaks.

"Maka, get dressed up for 7 tonight. I'm going to pick you up and take you on out." She watches as he clears his throat and looks away, face flaming. "For, like, a date."

She smiles from her place in her checkbook. "You act like a real cool guy, but you're actually easily embarrassed and super sappy, aren't you?"

"I... just feel bad for doing things out of order." The ruddiness in his cheeks extends to the tips of his ears, and he grimaces.

She stops penning out numbers. "What?"

"Um, well... sleeping with you before at least buying you dinner. It just seems wrong."

"It's 2014," she says, laughing, "don't worry about it. But okay. I'm looking forward to it. 7 PM. I'll be ready. You better have a limo waiting."

"It's 2014," he grumbles in response before he returns to the now-familiar sizzle and crackle of the ancient, grease-lined grill.

He greets her at her apartment door at exactly seven, dressed to the nines in a black pinstripe suit and crimson tie. She revels at how it offsets the red in his eyes, in the tinge of his cheeks; it also matches very well with the serrated edges of his teeth. She still feels their points on her skin and grins.

"Hey," she murmurs. "You look really dashing."

"Dashing? Really?" He snorts, but cannot seem to meet her gaze right away.

She's in a simple summer dress. White, sleeveless, with a brown belt that splits the plain top from the green-lace bottom that stops just above her knees. Her hair is down, curled at the tips where it touches her collarbone. He tries not think about the way she tasted the night before, and holds out his crooked arm for her to take. She loops her arm through his and grins.

They stride down the stairs in silence, and his anxiety is palpable. She stops him in the doorway and kisses him, quick, on the lips.

"There's nothing you can do wrong, Soul. I promise."

He fiddles with one of the curls in her golden hair. "I hope you're right."

"_Have you ever tried to count every grain of sand?"_

* * *

><p>Soul takes her to a place with white tablecloths and candlelight. They sit across from each other at a tiny table, and are handed leather-backed menus with what seem like meals made of diamonds based on the prices. Other guests of the restaurant are dressed in furs, strings of pearls.<p>

The waiter is gruff, dressed like a butler in a manor. Soul and Maka sit in an uncomfortable silence, until she breaks.

"Soul, I really thank you for taking me out like this, but... honestly, I hate this place, it's really expensive."

"Black Star told me you would love it here..." He places his menu down, and groans.

She laughs at the pout in his face. "One thing you haven't seemed to learn about him yet is that he has no idea what he's talking about... ever." She takes one of his hands, and the tablecloth is cold on their palms. "You like take-out and comedies?"

He appears to breathe a sigh of relief, and smiles. "I really, really like you." He squeezes her hand.

They order pizza loaded with all kinds of meat, some they've never even heard of. They turn on _Step Brothers _and fall asleep on the couch.

She can barely hear the ocean, but sleeps better than she ever has.

Her father is right in some ways; he'd marry her on the spot if he could. He wants hundreds more of these moments. They're so simple, so easy, as if they've always been there and as if they always will be.

"_What happens if I have to lose one of the best things I've ever come across?"_

* * *

><p>There is a quiet confusion sometimes between them, especially as early August lands in them like a silent bullet from the dark. It lodges in a space just at the bottom of her heart, his. A pillow-talk unmentionable, a lingering question. He was only needed for the summer, and then he's meant to return to his full-time job at a jazz dive bar in New York City, hundreds of miles out of reach of her, of the sea.<p>

They never ask, as they never want to know. It hovers in the shadows in their eyes as they exchange mournful gazes in the restless nights. They're never seen apart.

She's never found it so easy to be with one person this way. She never wants to have to find it again.

She thinks of her graduate degree coated in dust in her closet. She thinks of the dingy diner, lined with piano-key paper.

She runs a finger across his scar, and thinks of her own shattered family.

She buries her head in his chest and cries while he sleeps. Her heart belongs to too many places to beat right.

The weeks go too fast.

Even the amounts of customers begin to dwindle in the later days. With closing time approaching in an hour, and her waitresses and chef chattering in the kitchen she slumps in a booth in the center of the restaurant, and gazes out the window, watching a few tourist families travel by to her competitor. She starts to feel less dread about it. Somewhere inside, she almost wants it. She wants the answer to where she should be handed to her. A blue jay flits by, and then she sees her father, hunched the way she is.

He opens the door, and the bell above it tinkles, but in this moment it sounds like an alarm. The bird caws somewhere in the distance, a beautiful cerulean bird that somehow sounds like a monster.

Her stare is an emerald winter as he slides into the booth across from her. She says nothing, freezes in her place to match the cold that enters her eyes.

Her employees all struggle to see from the kitchen window.

"Maka," Spirit greets. "I need to talk to you, since my original plan doesn't seem to be working."

She crosses her arms.

He flinches at the defensive body language, the quiet. "The restaurant," he says. "You need to close it down and leave. I know from an inside source that it isn't doing well, and that's okay. I think it's time you move on from here. You're worth more than this."

"Get out!" she screams, and rises from the table so harshly that it shakes. "Get out of here." She looks down, hides her breaking gaze beneath her sweeping bangs. "This isn't your place anymore. You don't have a right to be here!"

"I am still the owner."

"You have no right to be! When she died, I took it over because you fell into more pieces than me! You were a pathetic mess, so I had to be the strong one! I've worked at this place for years, tried to keep it going. To keep her memory and dream alive, I took it over. I've worked at this place for years, all while you were sobbing somewhere in the distance. I did this for her."

He gets up from the seat as well. "And what have you done for yourself?"

"I haven't deserved anything! She died doing something for me, so I have to live doing something for her!"

"You know she would never want that for you!"

"How would you know?" Tears stream down her face, beyond her control. Her fists clench, and she finally rips into his stressed gaze with her own.

"Because she was my soulmate, Maka. I knew every dream and wish of hers, and none of them ever included you having to take over this shitty place."

"Just get out," she says, voice shaking. "Just get the hell out!" Before he can respond, she rams through the swinging kitchen door and out into the alley.

She slides down onto the ground with her back to the stone wall. She wipes at her eyes and thinks about her conversation with Ox here, how he looked in the wake of breaking up with Kim. She thinks of losing Soul, she thinks of her mother, of how trapped she feels in this shadow-chilled alley.

Another blue jay crows from the roof above her.

* * *

><p>She lets Soul guide her to her apartment.<p>

He listens to music while she pulls open a wildlife book beside him.

"_The migration pattern of the blue jay is still a mystery to ornithologists. Some blue jays head south for the winter consistently every year, and some stay put year round. They still are not sure what causes some to leave and others to stay."_

After a while, Soul pulls the headphones from his iPod. He wraps them a few times around the mp3 player before he turns to face her. He closes her book on her, and takes her hand. He looks to the calender on her wall behind her for a brief moment, and reads the date: August 19, 2014. His days here are almost done. He swallows the lump in his throat, feels his heart thud like it weighs as much as all his aching bones combined.

"Maka, when I leave to go home," he starts, "I want you to come with me."

She slides the Audubon book from her lap, and sniffles. "What?"

"Come live with me in New York," he says.

She observes his expression, and it's bare. He's exposed to her completely. "Soul, you know I can't."

"You can," he urges. "Maybe your dad today was right. I'm sure your mother wouldn't want this life for you. Take that degree with you to New York. You're rottin' away here and you know it. There's more for you beyond here."

"You sound like my father," she hisses. "Stop."

"But you _are _worth more than this."

"_This _is all I have!" She pulls her hand from his.

"It doesn't have to be."

"Were you all a part of this?" she asks, sidling away from him to the opposite end of the couch. "This _plan _he was talking about?"

"Maka-"

"Tell me!"

His heart is gone, swept away with the raging sea in her tear-lined stare. He's sinking too far at this point to even reach for the turbulent surface. He swears he can feel her soul shrinking away from his like fog into sunlight. Their hearts are dust in the growing space between them. "Yes," he admits.

"So all this _stuff _isn't even real?" she screeches. "Were you just leading me on because my father told you to? Did he pay you? I knew I shouldn't have trusted you! I let you in and you were just some pawn of my father's. I should've known. I should've known I couldn't ever be this lucky in love. Get out!"

"Maka, me falling for you was never a part of-"

"Get out! I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear or see you anymore! This is betrayal to me."

"I'm in love with you," he says, and she feels like she's suffocating.

"You're a liar," she responds, and her voice is in shambles. "I can't believe anything you say anymore. Get out!" She's tired, she realizes, of having to say this. She is tired of letting people in only for them to go. "Just leave. I never want to see you again." She curls up, and restrains her cries. She won't let him hear her.

He leaves in silence, the same way he entered her life. Slowly, quietly. Waves lapping at her feet in the sand.

"_Blue jays are not actually blue in the way we see their color. It is a result of light distortion, much like the color of the ocean as we know it. For example, when a blue jay feather is crushed, it loses that beautiful deep blue."_

* * *

><p>The population of the beaches dwindles fast in the days following Soul's disappearance, as if his presence drew them here. It's been a cold summer, she realizes as she throws on a spring jacket to be comfortable outside mid-day in August by the sea. She sits in an empty section of sand and lays there for a while. She's so much a piece of this place that she tries to will herself into the sand.<p>

She startles when someone next to her, but settles when Black Star plops down next to her.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?" she asks with a sigh.

"I am," he says, grinning.

"I can't believe you've kept this harbormaster thing going for years."

"You know, I can't, either." He turns to her, and she's shocked by the seriousness of his stare. "Maka, I heard about the stuff with your dad and Soul, and I'm sorry."

She scrunches up her nose. "Please don't pity me. It's like a three-legged dog pitying a shark." She grimaces at the image of a shark, of sharp teeth. His hands on her skin still burn in vivid memory.

"I just feel bad because my relationship is absolutely flawless."

"Well, you _are _dating a yoga instructor. I'm sure that has a lot of bonus."

"That, and it's Tsubaki."

"Yes, yes, I know. Your girlfriend is hot and perfect."

"I'm the big night sky, and she's the stars." He leans back, as if looking for the real stars in the ashen sky. "We just match up. Because we're both perfect."

She shoves him.

She used to think that of Soul, too. He was shark teeth and she was sea glass; they just made sense.

After Black Star leaves, she dozes off on the beach. Her dreams are filled with copper lanterns, but it still all feels dark to her.

Maka wanders around in a stone-clad silence. She spends most of her shifts in her office, trying to reorganize piles of useless paperwork. She rejects Marie's invitations, some of Patty's and Kim's, especially since she reunited with Ox. Day by day, she simply hollows out the office, nothing more and nothing less. It keeps the white noise and the memories from her mind.

"Maka," Liz says one day, an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth, "we need to have a very important chat."

"Give me twenty more minutes. I'm almost done here."

"No, now. I'm so tired of seeing you in here. It's depressing. Let's go." She cannot argue when Liz grabs her by the hand and drags her out the door, down the side-street overflowing with now-empty rental houses.

They sit on a bench overlooking a smaller section of the ocean, on a grassy hill. Liz angles herself to prevent her boss's escape, which sets Maka on edge. This cannot be a good talk.

"I'm not good with words like you are," Liz says. "But, anyway, your father's plan, I was sort of a part of it."

"_What?"_

"Don't you _dare _go anywhere, Albarn. You let me finish what I gotta say. I've been your best friend for years now, don't kick me out like your little boy toy. You'd be stupid to push me out of your life."

Maka stays seated, though her eyes are faded in color, resigned.

"I was in love once, you know. Maybe you remember. I never told you his name." She pulls the unlit cigarette from her mouth. "His name was Wes. Wes Evans."

"Liz." Her eyes widen, some the hue leaks back into them.

"Those weekends I used to spend in New York in the winter months, they meant a lot to me. He was _my _soulmate. I would stay at his apartment. That's how I met Soul. They used to live together, before the accident. After I met him and got to know him, I knew he'd be a match for you. So, I started telling him about you, and maybe showed him a picture or two." There are no qualms in her voice, but Maka blushes.

"Seriously? Why would you-"

"He liked you immediately, without even having to meet you. And you should know, all this was before your father's meeting with him. He wanted to meet you long before that. Soul's got a big heart hidden beneath a whole lot of darkness. He got roped into this thing of your father's without ever wanting to hurt you. He just got suckered into the idea that it would be best for you. But mostly, once he met you, he just didn't want to be apart from you. When he asked to take you to New York with him, that wasn't your father's plot. That was him just wanting to be with you. You should know that, though maybe it's too late now." She leans back on the bench, and sighs. "I knew you two would fuck it up. You both act without thinking most of the time. Idiots."

Maka sinks into her seat, and feels some splinters from the bench prick her back. She's speechless.

"I loved Wes so much, you know. I was destroyed. But when I saw Soul at the funeral, that was true destruction in him. I took him here with me after that. You kept him floating, and watching you two fall for each other kept me floating. I felt like I was doing a last favor for Wes and for your mom, cause I loved them both. Wes always wanted a good life for his brother, and your mom always wanted a good life for you. Everything he felt for you was real. I've lost someone I loved deeply." She says nothing more, gives Maka a moment of reflection. "It was awful, but you get past it, and then you gotta live your own life. That's just the way it works. We swim through the shit and come out clean."

"So what you're telling me," she says after a while, "is that it's probably not too late."

"I mean, I'm telling you a lot here about your life beyond your little love dilemma," Liz says, "but I think you get one of the main points. Get the hell out of this town. Oh, and use that degree you complained about nonstop, huh?"

Maka fiddles with the restaurant key in her pocket, then gets up and heads in the direction of her father's house.

Liz lights the cigarette, and smiles.

Patty meets her later, flops down beside her. "Ready to leave, sis?" she asks.

"You bet. Our work in this town is finally done. Our bird has left the nest at last."

"Good. I was kinda getting tired of waitressing. I hate doing dishes."

Her older sister laughs through her smoke. "Me, too."


	5. Chapter 5

She has not stepped foot into her own family's home since a few weeks after her mother's demise. It has been years, and yet it looks like it's never been touched, never changed. The wind-beaten shutters are still the same color, the porch still in the same rickety shape. The door is unlocked, just as it always was.

She takes a deep breath before she steps in, her hand on the cool, brass knob. She feels like she's facing a demon within her head-on, without weapons, without backup. She shakes off the fear and opens the door; it creaks.

The television is flickering a _Simpsons _marathon, though it's on mute. Her father is splayed over the couch, his feet in fuzzy slippers dangling over the side. His light snores outweigh the static. She remembers her mother always elbowing him to get him to stop.

Maka considers leaving the key on his chest and simply leaving without a word, but feels she owes him more than that, despite his bitter absence in her life. "Papa?" she whispers, and he almost immediately shoots up from his slumber. She backs away a few inches, one of her hands on her chest.

"Sorry," he grumbles, "I'm just... not used to seeing you here. Or talking to me first. It's... almost exciting." He smiles, just the slightest.

"Don't get wishy-washy on me," she retorts, before she settles on the coffee table across from him. Just enough distance to be comfortable. She smiles back, equally as hesitant as his own.

After another silent moment, she places the key in his hand. "I came to give you this," she says. His eyes widen. "And to apologize for how I acted earlier. You definitely haven't been the best dad to me, but... sometimes I just forget you went through as much as me."

"But you came out a lot stronger than I did, which just proves to me that you'll always have your mother's fire. Which means I'll never have to worry about you, wherever you end up. Though, I have a feeling it's going to be New York. And I still hate your boyfriend even though he helped me. If he ever got you pregnant, or -"

"I talked to Liz," she interrupts before he can get too riled up, "and I understand a lot more. And part of the reason I'm going to New York _is _Soul, but most of it is simply because it was always where my heart was. And you're right, mama would never want this life for me. This was her dream, and yours. It was never mine. I just carried the weight of it because I thought that was the right thing to do." She bites her bottom lip. "But it's not. The right thing for me to do now is... to do what _I _want. And this is what I want, more than anything. The love I found is just an added bonus."

Spirit reaches for her hand, and much to his surprise, she takes it. The key sits between their palms. Some of the rust chips off.

"You've saved a lot of lives, you know," her father says. "You've got a soul all full of light. Never lose that."

"You know I never could."

"That's why I'm letting you go so easily." He sits up, stuffs the key into his pocket. "I can't wait to read the articles you put out. I'll read them to your mother." He observes her for a moment, and it's suddenly as if he's in the room with a complete stranger. In a way, she is. He abandoned her in some of her toughest years, in some of the days and months she grew the most. But he's glad to see some of himself reflected in her, in her short temper, her tenacity and in her dedication to what matters. "I wish she could see you now. And I wish she could meet that boy of yours, too. I hate to admit it, but he's a good kid. Good luck out there. And I know I was shitty, but... I hope we can keep in touch?"

"Absolutely," she says with a grin. "You know that no matter what, I always love you, papa."

"Maka!" he wails, and she tries to escape the death-grip hug he entangles her in. "Say that again, please!"

"Absolutely not!"

* * *

><p>Maka spends the next few days packing up what looks like her entire life. She watches her apartment grow emptier and emptier, and elation fills her. She puts her family graduation photo and degree away last. She finishes and decides on an order in which to say her goodbyes.<p>

Black Star slaps her on the back, says he'll see her again soon. Tsubaki starts to cry and doesn't let her go for over ten minutes. Marie smiles, says she expects a place to stay when she's up for a trip to New York. Ox gives her a thumbs up with his arm around Kim, who just blushes. She says so long to a few of the other business owners in town, some more locals. The faces begin to blur after a while. Maybe it won't be too difficult to leave.

She tries to say goodbye to Liz and Patti, but finds their apartment as vacant as her own. There's a note with awful scrawl left under their doormat where they used to leave Maka's spare key:

_Thank you for all you've done for us, but I think we're even now. Patti and I are taking a long road trip. We've got a lot to see, just like you've got a lot to do. We're gonna miss you, Albarn. But one of our stops is New York. And by the time we get there, we expect a Pulitzer Prize or two. Maybe a godchild if you're feeling especially generous._

_- The Thompson Sisters (who are your best friends no matter where we all go)._

_P.S. Soul's address is on the back of this paper._

* * *

><p>Her last stop is her mother's grave. Her father recently left her a bouquet: end-of-season sunflowers. Beside the flowers, she leaves the photo that once sat on the restaurant's desk of she and Spirit holding her as a baby on the day of its grand opening, and one picture that Black Star took of Maka trying to show Soul how to wakeboard. Instead of focusing on her feet like she was trying to instruct him, he just smiles and watches the serious expressions on her face. She likes to tell her mother stories in pictures.<p>

She doesn't know the next time she'll be able to leave one.

Maka idles outside of the shut-down restaurant the morning before her long trip. The tourists are long gone now that Labor Day Weekend has come and gone, and the town is so empty it's as if when summer ends, so does the life. Humidity settles on her shoulders, though not as thick as it was in the dead of summer.

She's broken everything else that belonged to her mother. All the dishes are gone, the perfumes, the necklaces, the books. This restaurant is the one she and her father shattered together, though it'll never rest in hundreds of pieces like the porcelain. It'll remain intact until it gets replaced, removed. Then it'll be forgotten, like all the landmarks before it and around it.

She supposes that's life.

She takes the highway at breakneck speed, leaves the scent of the ocean behind her.

* * *

><p>It takes Maka a few days to settle down in such a big city. She can barely figure out the maps of the subways, as it seems like so many of them go to the same places. She cannot walk from one place to the other here; Central Park is ten times the size her tiny town was. But she has fun with it, gets lost as many times as she finds herself.<p>

Finally, she takes the slip of paper left from Liz with Soul's address, and inserts it into her phone. It's only a four-block walk from where she stands, somewhere on the outskirts of Times Square. She's tired of the smell of the subways, and the weather is still somewhat warm on her skin. She starts in the direction he might be.

She knows she wouldn't deserve him with the way she kicked him out that day, but somewhere, she wants to try. She swears she still feels pieces of his Soul within hers, some sparks of it.

When she reaches the door to his apartment, it's near-nightfall. She watches a few rats skitter by her, a few blue jays sweep from tree to tree.

Before she can hesitate, or turn around, she knocks on the door. She wrings the paper with his address in her hands over and over until he opens it. He's not dressed for grill-summers anymore. He looks unfamiliar for a moment, until she sees the bladed edges of his teeth in a surprising smile.

"I haven't prepared what I was going to say," she blurts. Her throat and mouth go dry.

"Well, I probably shouldn't let you talk, since you didn't let me." He crosses his arms, blocks the door.

"No, you shouldn't. But I was hoping you'd be nicer than me."

"I know for a fact that I am, so go ahead, speak."

"I'm in love with you, too. And I'm sorry that I didn't give you a chance to explain when you could have."

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that I met with your father."

"I'm sorry I kicked you out. I'm sorry I told you I never wanted to see you again, because that'd never be true."

"I'm sorry I look Boo Berry more than Count Chocula."

She puffs her cheeks. "Don't be dumb."

Soul pulls her to him suddenly, and she lets out a small gasp at the force of his embrace. "You told me to tell you my fears once. They changed when I met you," he whispers against the top of her head.

"What do you mean?" she mumbles into his shirt.

"I was so afraid to lose you, and that's when I knew... I was in some real deep shit."

"Poetic." She grips the fabric of his shirt tighter. "But I know what you mean. I was scared of that, too. But... maybe it doesn't have to happen again."

"It doesn't."

"How do you know?"

"I live just a ten minute walk from the New York Times headquarters, first of all. Second, I'm going to prove that I actually really love you every day. Third, I just ordered some really great pizza and I have _Hocus Pocus _playing."

"Isn't it too early for that movie?"

"Never."

They sit on the couch the same way they once did so easily: her head in his lap, his fingers fiddling with the fringes of her hair. After a while, she notices the photo of Soul and his older brother. Wes is mussing up Soul's hair and he looks mopey, but content nonetheless.

"I want to hear some stories about your brother," Maka says after a while.

"I guess I got a lot to tell you."

"I have a lot to tell you, too." She smiles.

"Well, we have a lot of time. And plenty more pizza places. And way more Halloween movies."

She pulls his head down for a long, slow kiss. "And more of these."

* * *

><p>The first place he shows her is the jazz club he works for. The floors are red and black checkerboard, and there are thick, ebony curtains in all corners. The lights are dim, and though the music is soft, it fills the room around them. He's got on his pinstripe suit, and she's donning an elegant black dress.<p>

He holds her hand by the tiny candle on their table.

She closes her eyes and leans back. There's no sand there, but it starts to feel like home just the same.

* * *

><p>The next time she leaves a photo on her mother's grave, it's of their wedding.<p>

* * *

><p>She never forgets the sound of waves.<p> 


End file.
